Win7 USB problems

Win 7, Home Premium, 64 bit, Version 6.1.7601, SP1, Build 7601.
Dell Inspiron One, 2320, in service December 2012.
There are four (4) USB ports on the rear of the machine, and two (2) on the left side.

I am aware that Win 7 has some unresolved USB problems, but I have had a serious USB problem since my PC was new that seems to be unique. Every time I do a Windows update and install (security, Word, etc.) I lose the USB function. I then have to go into the device manager, uninstall most of the USB drivers, restart, and let Windows rebuild the USB driver stack. Uninstalling the drivers is no rapid task, usually taking over an hour or more. Another novel fault happened last week when I did my weekly Windows system image backup to an external HDD and, when completed, it left most of the USB ports useless. That never happened before. I had to go through the lengthy uninstall and rebuilt process again.

For the last year, I have been very careful to follow the Windows update quide in Windows Secrets as to what to install or not. It makes no difference. When it states an update is safe and I install, it still corrupts my USB ports.

Five (5) of the ports are affected because I use a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse and they continue to function when the other five (5) USB ports fail. The Logitech dongle (Unifying Device) is plugged into one of the USB ports on the rear and it remains operational when the others fail.

If anyone has experienced this problem and found the solution, I'd appreciate knowing.

Bob

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. (Mark Twain.) (Subject to change by Mr. Twain.)

It's the same in safe mode and clean boot. I've not checked the event viewer, but I will the next time it occurs. The "scan for hardware changes" shows no change. The USB ports are now functional after two (2) hours of work this afternoon, but I'm sure they will corrupt next week when I do the Win updates.

Bob

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. (Mark Twain.) (Subject to change by Mr. Twain.)

This may or may not help.
Corrupted, or with errors in, upper and lower filters maybe the problem.
Delete the data of the filter(s). Reboot and let Windows rebuild it/them (default is blank).

Upper and lower filters may cause USB and DVD/CD access problems. In XP, corrupted or bad filters may even refuse to read DVD/CD disks from DVD drives. Or cause exceedingly slow speed on DVD/CD drive access.
Most of the problem is the injected filter data from installing software. Old version Acronis installation is one example. Some DVD burner programs are anther examples. Many tries of attempted read of a bad DVD/CD disk also corrupt the filter(s) too, leading to slow DVD drive access.

The solution is the same: Edit the registry and delete the filter(s) data. Reboot and let Windows rebuild the default filters.
Here is how if you are technically able to edit the registry:
1. Create a Restore Point, and/or backup the registry.
2. Run Regedit.exe or regedt32.exe
3. Search for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}
4. On the right pane, look for upperfilters and/or lowerfilters
5. Double click or right click to pop up the data window.
6. Usually the data name is "usbfilter".
7. Delete "usbfilter".
8. Close registry editing.
9. Reboot (a must).

Thank you. I'm very familiar with the upper and lower filters bugaboo and had to, many times, delete them in a XP OS. However, every time my USB ports have been corrupted in the Win 7 OS, that's the first thing I used to check and never found any fault, so about a year ago I quit checking. That couldn't be the cause today because I could repair the ports. BTW, I'm pretty much up to snuff with computers, started in 1965 with commercials ones long before a PC was available, and usually never have a problem finding the cause of a fault and correcting it...except for this USB problem. About six (6) months after I had the machine, I gave up trying to repair the problem myself and contacted Dell. They sent a tech three (3) times within a week, finally replaced the motherboard. Then three different online techs worked with the PC for many hours in days and couldn't find the problem. I know it's in the software somewhere, probably a simple fault. I have two more Win 7 OS machines, laptops, one 32 bit, one 64 bit, and the Windows updates do not corrupt their USB functions. Therefore, it's in this 2320 machine.

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. (Mark Twain.) (Subject to change by Mr. Twain.)

Sudo,
Thank you for your time. I went to the first link you provided which led me to another link that provided "7601usbfix.exe" which I ran and it showed that all was updated and that I didn't need the fix. I then went to the other (last) link you provided which topic was for Win 8, but it also discussed the KB2756872 update, of which I seem to recall I had dealt with in the past. Just to be sure, I checked my update history and KB2756872 is not installed. I can't recall if it ever was and I uninstalled, or if I skipped it. It's not in my hidden updates.

I've just downloaded a USB mapping tool and the next time I have the problem I'll map and try to find why the port with the Logitech dongle remains active and the others don't.

Again, I thank you for your time.

Bob

As a side note, when I received this machine in December 2012, from the start I was getting BSODs. I tried to find the problem myself for about a month, then gave up and contacted Dell. The tech discovered that the factory had installed a corrupt Win 7 OS and sent me another OS on a thumb drive, which I installed. That took care of the BSODs, but that's when I began experiencing intermittent USB problems.

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. (Mark Twain.) (Subject to change by Mr. Twain.)

With that you can either do a reinstall or try an offboot sfc /scannow.

If you opt for the reinstall then use Belarc Advisor to find and use Dell's generic Windows product key (and others for any paid for programs) as the one on your sticker may not work and you will need to back up your driver folders from System32 as the ISO doesn't contain any drivers and then you will be able to drop them back into System32 after the reinstall.

You'll also need to back up any personal files as well.

To perform an offboot sfc /scannow you will need to change the Boot order to CD/DVD first, insert the disk then Press any key to boot from CD/DVD when prompted.

I don't think I'll need to tell you to select Repair your Computer and then navigate to the Recovery Environment.

Select Command Prompt then type and Enter bcdedit |find "osdevice"

Using whichever is given for the partition letter, type and Enter (assuming C: ) sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\Windows which should hopefully correct any anomalies in your current install.

Edit - If you have any problems downloading the full 3.09GB for the Home Premium, then you can use the Pro one.

You can perform an offboot sfc /scannow with that but to you may need to delete the eicfg file to make it a universal install disk for the reinstall.

Use the link from http://code.kliu.org/misc/winisoutils/ to download and save the eicfg removal utility to Downloads where you can boot it as a .exe and point it to the ISO file as you did with the USB/DVD burner.

Last edited by Sudo15; 2014-04-11 at 11:04.

The Following User Says Thank You to Sudo15 For This Useful Post:

I hadn't run a sfc scan in months, sort of out of mind, but I just did. After, I went to the CBS logs and found it had repaired numerous faults. I'm going to sit on it for now until the next updates and see what happens. If I lose the USBs again after the updates, I'll continue to the next step of your advice.

Thank you so much for the help and I'll be back with you later (maybe not until next week).

Bob

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. (Mark Twain.) (Subject to change by Mr. Twain.)

There's no need to wait until the next WUs as you can try things out now.

It's possible that it could have been a one off that the system image took out the USB ports, but creating another and then checking could tell you if you are on the way to resolving this.

As for WUs, I assume you are using either IE 10 or 11.

These are updates and creating a restore point and uninstalling the update then reinstalling it after the restart could be a test, unless you want to restore to prior this month's updates and just install one at a time, checking the ports after each.

The Following User Says Thank You to Sudo15 For This Useful Post:

Very interesting problem.
I re-read your post. May I suggest this:
1. Connect a wired mouse and a wired keyboard.
2. Uninstall, using RevoUninstaller or equivalent, to completely remove Logitech, particularly its registry entry and driver.
3. Unplug Logitech wireless dongle from USB port.
4. Use USB Drive Cleanup software (such as DriveCleanup.exe) to remove all USB drives from the registry. Or edit Registry manually (a long process though).
5. Reboot.
6. Use the wired mouse and keyboard for a while. See if problem goes away.

My assumption:
You said in the 1st post that the Logitech wireless mouse-keyboard combo works in **ALL** conditions, all the while the rest of USB ports are not. I use USB wireless keyboard+mouse too (not Logitech). Have Win7 on my laptop as well. I do not experience the same problem. Specifically, I don't install the software from the USB wireless combo. Win7 default works fine.
I had Logitech devices before and experienced some conflict problems from their customed software. Hence my suggestion.
Hope this helps.